The polls tell us there are more people enthusiastic about voting for Republicans than for Democrats. After watching White House Adviser David Axelrod on ABC’s This Week, one can easily understand the lack of enthusiasm for an aimless Democratic Party that can’t even stand up and fight for what it’s supporters believe because it’s led from the top down by incompetent and corrupt corporatists.

Axelrod chose to pound on the two parties’ difference in tax cuts for the middle class versus the rich. But he offered no explanation for why his own party was afraid to take that difference to a vote in the Congress.

Obama’s team had already failed to offer a Plan B for jobs and economic recovery to replace their sputtering Plan A, and he said nothing about the rest of the more worthwhile job-producing stimulus tax cuts that are due to expire this week. It’s now obvious there’s no one minding the store, and with everyone preoccupied with leaving, we’re not about to get a credible jobs/economic recovery plan from this Administration. Next, please?

So that explains much of the Democrats’ malaise, but you have to inhabit an alternative universe in which up is down, right is wrong, and facts are lies and myths to account for the willingness of voters to even consider voting Republican.

The deeply cynical Senate Republican Leader, Mitch McConnell, managed to evade every question asked by ABC This Week’s Christiane Amanpour. She came armed with videos and quotes showing what a hypocrite he is and how embarrassed any rational person would be by the nutty positions expressed by Republican candidates like Sharon Angle, Rand Paul, Joe Miller, and Christine O’Donnell and the rest of the horror show that has become the Republican Party. But McConnell dodged every question; Amanpour simply gave up trying to get direct, let alone honest, answers.

McConnell avoided defending the nutcases that now define the Republican Party by saying that since Sharon Angle was polling even with the Democratic Senate Leader, why should he question the voters’ judgment? Well, Mitch, it’s because you’re supposed to care about your Party’s integrity and sanity and the country’s interests. But of course, Mitch didn’t want to answer the question Amanpour was asking: how can you defend candidates that are consistently making stupid and dangerous statements? He can’t, so he dodged.

McConnell’s evasiveness on the implicit label of lunacy was to charge the Democrats with extremism, characterizing the Administration’s efforts to rescue the economy from the depression McConnell’s Party left us as "extreme." Amanpour did not think to ask how Republicans would have reversed the depression they created, nor how they could argue tax cuts for the richest Americans would rescue the economy but tax cuts for the middle class, jobs programs, infrastructure investments, and emergency relief to states to avoid layoffs were "extreme." He should have been asked: How can you explain not voting for any of these?

Nor did Amanpour effectively pressure McConnell to unpack his argument that we shouldn’t be increasing taxes in the middle of a recession. The question is what measures work best to stimulate jobs and recovery, and the first answer is, tax cuts for the rich are the least effective. So the issue is between continuing tax cuts primarily for the middle class versus those exclusively for the richest 2 percent, whose revenues could be used in vastly more worthwhile, job-creating ways.

McConnell dodged that by noting that 31 House Democrats and perhaps 5-6 Senate Democrats agreed with the Republican position of further enriching the rich. Thanks a lot, Blue Dogs and conservaDems, for bailing out the man who wants to be your next Senate Majority Leader. You own him.

But that wasn’t the only moment when McConnell used corrupt and foolish Democrats to defend the indefensible. When Amanpour asked where Republicans would cut spending to achieve their preposterous claims of cutting deficits while extending massive tax cuts for everyone, McConnell noted that President Obama’s Deficit ("Catfood") Commission would report in December, and he’d be happy to consider their recommendations. Which translated means: we said Thursday we won’t harm seniors, but on Sunday I’m saying if the Commission says, "let them eat catfood," that’s how we’ll balance the budget. Thanks, Obama.

So once again, we find the White House and conservative Democrats helping Republicans make the argument that Republicans should replace Democrats in Congress and never be required to say or do anything remotely sensible or helpful in addressing the nation’s staggering problems. You’d think the Republicans won the 2008 elections, and maybe they did.

40 Responses to Axelrod and McConnell Take ABC’s Amanpour and US Down the Rabbit Hole

You’d think the Republicans won the 2008 elections, and maybe they did.

I believe that they won in 2006 because pelosi’s first reaction was that “impeachment is off the table.” There is not much that the dims have done that represent a real win for the average working people. The voters showed very plainly that they really no longer wanted the repug nonsense governing their lives, so the dims took that to mean that the voters wanted more of the same, but from the dims. No matter what happens with the vote, the dims take it to mean that the voters want the dims to become more and more repug. I say again, as much as I disliked him, George Corley Wallace was right more than 30 years ago when he said “there’s not a dime’s worth of difference between the two parties.”

I had some hope that when Amanpour took over the focus of This Week might change to more international news, rather than partisan politics.
But apparently the show’s subject must stay the same, politics, politics-as-horse-race.
And Amanpour, having focussed her entire career on overseas issues, can’t possibly be up to speed on the Republicans’ hypocrisy.
Good that she “came armed”, at least. Showing up the lies and contradictions used to be what tv journalism was good at, til they switched to the stenographer mode.
I didn’t watch – haven’t watched in ages. Do you think it was at least obvious how dishonest McConnell was to the ordinary viewer?

I posted this on another thread, but it’s more on topic here. The D volunteer coordinator for Ulster County sent an email asking for election volunteers. Of the 100 on the list, he got ONE response, according to his second begging email.

Ulster Co. is closely divided; sometimes Ds win majority of county offices, sometimes Rs. The U.S. rep (district much bigger than just Ulster Co), Hinchey, used to be reliable librul; is in the Veal Pen since O election. Don’t know if he has a R opponent.

You’d think the Republicans won the 2008 elections, and maybe they did.

They did and its been going on ever since the DLC got off the ground. This happened when the Democrats sold their souls because they cared more about winning than what it was they actually won (as long as it had a D next to its name), so the corporations took over as they’d actually exercise their authority instead of mindlessly vote for whoever is handed to them and lose all leverage. As long as voters see this as a sport and are committed fans of either the Red Team or the Blue Team, it will be the Arnold Rothsteins who will rig the game.

Depressing. This am on Nice Polite Republicans, there was reporting from the Philadelphia ‘burbs of alleged Independents who have “gone off” Obama and are contemplating voting R this election. Why? Not much logic was in evidence in the report. The voters interviewed mainly said: “Obama’s ‘ok’ but has done a crummy job, so I guess I’ll vote R this time, even tho I think the R’s have offered no solutions.” Typically lackluster “reporting” from NPR with nary a hint of irony or asking the voters more useful questions… like WHY they thought voting R this time would be such an improvement, or what they thought would “happen” should the Rs regain control of Congress.

Not that I think it will matter much, myself. Several years ago on the radio show “A Prarie Home Companion,” Garrison Keillor sang a little ditty that had the refrain “we’re all Republicans now.” Keillor meant it ironically, but anymore I see it as just “the way it is.” The corporations & the oligarchs have won the battle, that’s for sure.

Axlerod and Rahm are PART of the problem, but Obama is the President and he has to start acting like an American,who represents the people, not some magical charactrer who talks the game, but doesn’t walk the walk.

I’m not sure if I’m following you, especially your statement that “nobody believes in ownership society anymore.” I would love to believe that’s true, but I don’t think it is. Some are waking up that the “ownership society” is a failed concept that’s gone beyond its sell-by date, but a lot of people around the globe aren’t on that page yet.

I do agree that, one way or another, piper has to be paid, and we’ve all lived way too high on the hog for such insanely materialistic lifestyles to continue to be sustained at current levels. A lot of people are kicking, screaming, clawing and grasping NOT to face the reality, and the political kabuki show is about pitting the current more-or-less middle class “haves” against the “have less” or “have nots” in order to permit the obscenely wealthy to continue ripping us off, ripping off the earth’s minerals and other resources, wage wars, pollute, etc.

Time will tell. Some things will definitely change… we may not enjoy some of those changes so much is my concern (and not thru lack of trying to ameliorate the situation).

Obamaco is doing the job that the corporate Oligarchs installed him to do: run “his” Admin as a hard-right Repubican. Therein lies the confusion between what Obama “says” and what he “does.” My suggestion is to ignore what BHO says; pay attention only to what he does.

you have to inhabit an alternative universe in which up is down, right is wrong, and facts are lies and myths to account for the willingness of voters to even consider voting Republican.

Uninformed, holier-than-though centrists will probably switch votes, but that’s not the fundamental problem. That would be all those who voted Democrat in 2008 who won’t vote at all. We need to keep that distinction in mind because too many analysts assume that the only choice is to vote for one party or the other, and thus if Democrats don’t win it’s because people turned to Republicans. From this they erroneously parrot the meme that Democrats are being punished for going too far to the left, when in reality people are staying home because they did not go far enough.

Until we get a MSM outlet that will seriously question ALL POLITICIANS on their stance, it will be very difficult to move the public, because their primary, and often times only news input is the MSM. Progressives need to have their own FOX new channel. Maybe start collecting monies from rich progressives (and those who can afford to chip in – times are very hard for 95% of us plain folks) and grab a majority share in MSMBC (since it seems to offer the most LEFT leaning news shows).

Axelrod is nothing but a mealy-mouthed, nutless bastage. He is precisely why I detest politicians in general. Few, if any, will speak plainly. For every Sanders and Grayson, you have a thousand Axelrods and McConnells. Do these assholes really talk that way in private to each other? Seriously, who converses in such a fuzzy-bullshit-platitude mode? No one I know or ever want to know. These clowns are so low, they’d have to stand on a stool to kiss a snake’s ass. I can’t convey in words the contempt and disgust I feel toward those kind of people.

Democratic Party that can’t even stand up and fight for what it’s supporters believe because it’s led from the top down by incompetent and corrupt corporatists.

Well, we’re slowly moving the narrative in the right direction! “Corrupt” made it into the frame, rather than the traditional pablum about their stupidity, incompetence, or cravenness that we’re all subject to from almost every corner of the media and blogosphere.

We should not that if they were incompetent corporatists, then we’d probably all be excited to vote for them, because they’d be doing an incredibly bad job of serving corporate interests. That this isn’t happening ought to be a cue to us that they’re not incompetent at all. They’re perfectly adequate, ranging to highly effective, corporatists. Incompetence implies they’re screwing up in achieving their goals. They’re not.

The change started with the election of Reagan. Republicans were committed to either destroying NPR or at the very least neutering it after their coverage of Watergate. They infiltrated and through the Bush years and the laziness of the Clinton years the Republicans have been successful in neutering NPR. It is no longer an honest and legitimate broker of the 4th Estate. NPR now means National Propaganda Radio.

I’m not sure if I’m following you, especially your statement that “nobody believes in ownership society anymore.” I would love to believe that’s true, but I don’t think it is. Some are waking up that the “ownership society” is a failed concept that’s gone beyond its sell-by date, but a lot of people around the globe aren’t on that page yet. I do agree that, one way or another, piper has to be paid, and we’ve all lived way too high on the hog for such insanely materialistic lifestyles to continue to be sustained at current levels.

It only takes 10% for sea change (ooops … pardon the pun). I think we’re there.

A lot of people are kicking, screaming, clawing and grasping NOT to face the reality, and the political kabuki show is about pitting the current more-or-less middle class “haves” against the “have less” or “have nots” in order to permit the obscenely wealthy to continue ripping us off, ripping off the earth’s minerals and other resources, wage wars, pollute, etc.

I have studied politics since the early 1960’s. Over the decades I have learned that the GOPranos and their racist religious RepubliKLAN wing have created a big RepubliCULT of piracy and religious oppression for decades.

Progressives have themselves to blame for the inability for the last 30 years to stop conservatives in both parties. In the 80’s the Democratic Party had the conservative Boll Weevil Democrats who got replaced by the conservative Blue Dog Democrats of today.

Actually the so called progressives of today have acted conservative on testing new ways to defeat conservatives between elections. You have to go after the companies that give money to conservatives in both parties with organized consumer boycotts combined with a strong email campaign to tell these companies that unless they stop giving money to conservatives ( MOVEON has done this with TARGET ) and unless their CEOs talk to congressional leaders of both parties and get a $10 an hour minimum wage, a strong public option, a prescription drug benefit in Medicare Part B, and more You will no longer buy their products. Multiply this one email by a million, organized progressives and we will scare the hell out of corporate CEOs and their boards of directors and dry up conservative donations and get us the legislation we demand.

If you will not do this, I ask you, what has worked to get progressive legislation under Clinton ( who threw welfare recipients under the bus in 1996 ) and under Obama ( who gave us corporate health care and did very little to fix the Medicare Prescription drug benefit and failed to give us a strong public option )

Test my strategy and stop your Stockholm syndrome or find something else new to do or wallow in your angst and sturm and drang, fellow progressives. I have had enough progressive bellyaching with no solutions.

We are reaching the two-year anniversary of the Obama Administration. Instead of “Change We can Believe In” we have “Change we Can’t Believe”.

During those two years a lot has been done in the name of “bipartisanship”.

To name just a few examples:

We had a bipartisan effort to ignore the prior administration’s war crimes and violations of the Constitution.

We saw bipartisan efforts to bail out Wall Street and the big banks.

We saw bipartisan efforts to ramp up our war in Afghanistan and continue to feed the military establishment.

We saw unbelievable bipartisan efforts to water down health care reform to garner Republican votes.

These are some major accomplishments!!!!

Road Dog’s diary :: ::
The Democrats are in the process of committing political suicide. The independents are leaving in droves. And in case you haven’t noticed it you are witnessing the massive demoralization of the progressive base of the party.

What progressives are realizing is we have a current party of Dempublicans. They profess to be something different than Republicans but that is just an illusion.

They have hidden their stripes for a long time but now they are being revealed. They are doing the bidding of Corporate America just as the Republicans. They are in the pockets of Big Parma and the Insurance Industry just like the Republicans. They butter the bread of the Military Industrial Complex at every turn in tandem with the Republicans.

Well the “chickens are coming home to roost” in a little over 30 days.

Your latest spineless move to put off voting on the Bush era tax cuts is just the latest example.

I hear Pelosi just might allow a vote before the midterms on these tax cuts. That’s good. I just might get off my butt and vote for a Democrat if she does!! Think there is a GO

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